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Honor and Ethics: Holzman Center of Applied Ethics programming and speakers push students to do the right thing
Twelve students gathered with their dining hall trays and lunches during the mid-day break on a cool Thursday in February to talk medical ethics. The month’s topic: the ethical failures surrounding the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study, a decades-long study of Black men with syphilis that lacked informed consent and the option of treatment. For nearly an hour, students wrestled with the issues in a conversation guided by Dr. Kenneth M. Zide, a cardiac electrophysiologist and RE parent.
“Ultimately, you just have to keep your moral compass headed north,” Zide said. “In this case, people didn’t do that. A lot of people didn’t do that. Finally, somebody blew the whistle. It was a young researcher, as is often the case … What you have to keep in mind is that, if you see something like this, you have the power to change it.”
Honing that power to make moral decisions and stand up for what is right are, in many respects, the ultimate goals of the Holzman Center of Applied Ethics, which opened in December 2021 under the direction of Associate Head of School John A. King Jr. In its third year, the Holzman center has greatly expanded its reach and programming, while also bolstering a speaker series that has brought leaders in politics, business, the judiciary and sports to the upper school to talk about ethics.
“There’s a lot of momentum, and it will continue to snowball,” said Steve Holzman, who provided the seed donation for the center’s founding. “I’ve always been somebody whose stomach churned when I saw people cutting corners. What I really wanted students to get out of this is just the importance of being honest. I’m very happy with how it’s developing.”
“I’ve always been somebody whose stomach churned when I saw people cutting corners. What I really wanted students to get out of this is just the importance of being honest.”
Steve Holzman, founder of the Holzman Center of Applied Ethics
The medical ethics roundtables began at the upper school last October. In the spring, the roundtables will also include an exploration of legal ethics under the direction of Varun Raju ’24, a member of the newly formed Holzman Center of Applied Ethics Student Advisory Council. Raju last summer attended an ethical leadership program in New Orleans under Students Shoulder-to-Shoulder, an organization with which RE has formed an educational partnership. More than 10 RE students will attend similar programs this summer in various locations.
Last fall, RE students on the new ethics council led powerful peer-to-peer assemblies at the upper school and middle school that addressed academic integrity. The ethics ambassadors urged their fellow students to abide by the honor code and make ethical choices.
And Humanities Department faculty member Jenny Carson ’03 began teaching college-level Applied Ethics at the upper school. At the conclusion of the discussion- and reading-based course, she requires that her students present original research projects culminating in an Ethics Gallery Walk open to the RE community. Foundational to the course are high-level ethics case studies and student-led discussions.
“It is not my job to teach them what is right,” Carson said. “It is my job to help them understand how they get to their own moral reasoning and challenge them to deepen that thinking … This is a course that rewards inquiry and understanding to develop empathy for why we have a multitude of perspectives.”
The Holzman Center of Applied Ethics Speaker Series has featured several prominent speakers thus far in 2023-24. Rudy Ruiz ’98, a United States District Judge for the Southern District of Florida, led off the series on Oct. 18. In a talk at the Lewis Family Auditorium, Ruiz emphasized to students that, despite the current political climate, the virtues of respect, humility and civility remain integral for society and institutions to flourish. “You can fight for your position in the courtroom, but you need to maintain a level of respect for your opponent,” he said. “It’s important to strike a balance. We have become unbelievably fractured as a society and hyper-partisan. It’s the number one problem we have today: a breakdown of civil discourse.”
“We want students to be able to identify ethical dilemmas, and be equipped to work through those dilemmas. Doing the ‘right’ thing requires that students see beyond themselves ...”
John A. King Jr., Director of Holzman Center of Applied Ethics
The Holzman Center of Applied Ethics Speaker Series has featured several prominent speakers thus far in 2023-24. Rudy Ruiz ’98, a United States District Judge for the Southern District of Florida, led off the series on Oct. 18. In a talk at the Lewis Family Auditorium, Ruiz emphasized to students that, despite the current political climate, the virtues of respect, humility and civility remain integral for society and institutions to flourish. “You can fight for your position in the courtroom, but you need to maintain a level of respect for your opponent,” he said. “It’s important to strike a balance. We have become unbelievably fractured as a society and hyper-partisan. It’s the number one problem we have today: a breakdown of civil discourse.”
Markenzy Lapointe, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, visited RE in November and encouraged students not to veer from the right path. “Once you go down the path doing bad things, it catches up to you eventually,” he said. “All of us are going to make decisions in our lives that are going to track us, follow us our entire lives.”
In December, Miguel Fernandez, the founder of MBF Healthcare Partners, and Armando Codina, founder and executive chairman of Codina Partners, shared their personal journeys from Cuban immigrants to successful – and ethical – businessmen. “We have ethics that we adhere to; we are grateful for everything that we have,” Fernandez said. “We don’t take anything for granted. There is no sense of entitlement from anybody. We work hard ... It’s a long ride but it’s not a difficult ride. It is harder to do the wrong thing than to do the right thing.”
In February, Josephine Linden, the former chief compliance officer at Goldman Sachs, continued the series by sharing stories of ethical challenges she faced throughout her life and career. “Many people in this room may have thought at some point in time about cheating,” she said.“ There does come a point in time when people are tempted.”
The question RE students have been challenged to answer: When they face temptation – and they will – how will they respond?
“We want students to be able to identify ethical dilemmas, and be equipped to work through those dilemmas,” King said. “Doing the ‘right’ thing requires that students see beyond themselves, recognize their obligation to others and use their experience and knowledge to make ethical, moral decisions.”
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Founded in 1903, Ransom Everglades School is a coeducational, college preparatory day school for grades 6 - 12 located on two campuses in Coconut Grove, Florida. Ransom Everglades School produces graduates who "believe that they are in the world not so much for what they can get out of it as for what they can put into it." The school provides rigorous college preparation that promotes the student's sense of identity, community, personal integrity and values for a productive and satisfying life, and prepares the student to lead and to contribute to society.